Victoria Adams

Victoria (Tori) Adams is the Assistant Curator responsible for collections from Oceania, Africa, Americas, and the Ancient Mediterranean including Ancient Egypt.

Victoria graduated in Literature and Art History from the University of York, followed by a multi-disciplinary MA in Medieval Studies passed with distinction. She specialised in religious and secular symbolism in decorative marginalia, particularly representations of the ‘other’: humans and other creatures existing beyond the boundaries of society for reasons of race, religion, politics, health, or social perception. She was awarded a memorial prize for a research trip to southern Germany to examine the secular influences of the wodewose on representations of hirsute eremitic saints.

Victoria was fully funded by the AHRC for the MA in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, where she focused on issues of identity and ownership in the interpretation and display of Asian art in the UK. Following her student placement at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Victoria was employed as Assistant Curator of World Art.

Subsequently Victoria has curated world cultures collections at the Royal Armouries, The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth, Ipswich and Leeds civic museums. She has also worked with a variety of other collections including archaeology and Egyptology, fine and decorative art, arms and armour, social history, natural history, and libraries and archives. She has recently returned to the Department of World Cultures from the Science and Technology department, where she was a key member of the project team for the major exhibition Photography: A Victorian Sensation, which exhibited from June to November 2015.

Victoria has travelled extensively around South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Central America. She continues to be interested in the migration and exchange of religious, secular and mythological imagery and symbolism across cultures and social and political systems. She is currently researching into the Pacific masks in the National Museums’ collection, and preparing for the forthcoming Ancient Egypt gallery. She is the Membership Officer for the Scottish Museums Federation.